• Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!

Learning Learning about weather (soundings, H5, etc..)

PEA_RIDGE said:
IN THE MOST REDNECK TERMS POSSIBLE CAN SOMEONE BREAK THIS DOWN? IM TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT TO A FEW COWORKERS BUT HAVING DIFFICULTY

View attachment 16506
Click to expand...

Decent CAPE sounding altho it is on the lower side, decent 0-6km shear aswell, storm relative helicity is pretty high, but this sounding is lacking in richer moisture supportive of tornadoes at the surface through the column, also storms would move due west based off storm slinky, and oh yeah 0-3km lapses/CAPE is lacking aswell which is another limiting factor
 
Last edited:
Myfrotho704_ said:
Decent CAPE sounding altho it is on the lower side, decent 0-6km shear aswell, storm relative helicity is pretty high, but this sounding is lacking in richer moisture supportive of tornadoes at the surface through the column, also storms would move due west based off storm slinky, and oh yeah 0-3km lapses/CAPE is lacking aswell which is another limiting factor
Click to expand...

WHEN YOU GET TIME CAN YOU POINT OUT THE CAPE, SHEAR, HELICITY, AND OTHER PARAMETERS SO THEY CAN UNDERSTAND WITH A VISUAL AIDE? WANT TO MAKE SURE IM TELLING THEM THE RIGHT INFO
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
This is a thunderstorm sounding, when you see those dotted lines in a sounding, that normally indicates cape, CAPE is basically the amount of energy A parcel would have if lifted up into the the atmosphere, in this sounding, there’s 2267 jkg of CAPE, that’s pretty unstable, the higher the CAPE, typically you end up with more explosive updraft development, but that’s if you have some type of forcing (outflow, cold front, warm front, lee trough, etc View attachment 16211
Click to expand...


I notice several CAPE values at the bottom of the chart: SBCAPE, MJCAPE and DCAPE. What is the difference between each? Which should we look first when looking at a sounding?

gfs_2019030512_fh114_sounding_31.18N_85.48W.png
 
tractor girl said:
I notice several CAPE values at the bottom of the chart: SBCAPE, MJCAPE and DCAPE. What is the difference between each? Which should we look first when looking at a sounding?

View attachment 17416
Click to expand...

Its really convective energy at different levels and points for layman terms. For instance SBcape stands for surface based cape which is the convective energy starting at ground level. DCape is downdraft cape which us used to determine the strength of downdrafts. Presence of MLCape with low SBcape tells you that there is a cap and any convection at that point would be elevated.

I look at SBcape first and then on most soundings you will see 0-3km Cape which I look at next.
 
Thanks for the great information and explanations. I have been seeing these graphs for years and never could quite grasp what it was telling me. After this thread, I have a much better idea. Still not all the way there, but gaining on it.
 
John Jaye said:
Thanks for the great information and explanations. I have been seeing these graphs for years and never could quite grasp what it was telling me. After this thread, I have a much better idea. Still not all the way there, but gaining on it.
Click to expand...
Welcome aboard!
 
Arcc said:
Its really convective energy at different levels and points for layman terms. For instance SBcape stands for surface based cape which is the convective energy starting at ground level. DCape is downdraft cape which us used to determine the strength of downdrafts. Presence of MLCape with low SBcape tells you that there is a cap and any convection at that point would be elevated.

I look at SBcape first and then on most soundings you will see 0-3km Cape which I look at next.
Click to expand...
Setting spring severe aside when looking for summer tstorms would you look more toward MLCAPE vs SB? I've noticed many times in the summer when we get capped our SB will be in the 2000+ range but ml is much less and we have a ton of flat cumulus

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
SD said:
Setting spring severe aside when looking for summer tstorms would you look more toward MLCAPE vs SB? I've noticed many times in the summer when we get capped our SB will be in the 2000+ range but ml is much less and we have a ton of flat cumulus

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I think I would look more at SBcape, but Im embarressed to say I only look at soundings when there is severe weather possible. Its like when my wife asks me what the weather will be this week when I havent looked at it because Im focused on something a week away. She always gets me with the comment that I should know because im watching the weather enough.:oops:
 
Can somebody help breakdown what made april 27th 2011, so bad in terms of meteorological factors? Because ive heard james spann say something like for that day 63 or 64 things on a checklist of 67 for severe weather were in place. Im just curious to what made is SO bad. Living here in it and being around when it happened ive always been traumatized by how the day felt and how many horrible things happened that day. It was what triggered me to want to know more about the weather and being aware of it. But thanks in advance if anyone wants to help or explain the details. Ive looked at weather soundings from that day and dont understand what factors made it so bad. Other than an outflow boundary sitting on top of birmingham and dryline approaching during peak daytime heating. Along with high helicityScreenshot_20190317-230541_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
Also another thing i read about that day was there was controlled forest burning in south america which the smoke travelled up into Mississippi and alabama which may have aided in the storms any ideas on how that wouldve effected things?
 
Zander98al said:
Also another thing i read about that day was there was controlled forest burning in south america which the smoke travelled up into Mississippi and alabama which may have aided in the storms any ideas on how that wouldve effected things?
Click to expand...

Here’s the best I can give, perfect setup with a really powerful negativily tilted trough, lots of sfc moisture, then Capping developed after morning MCS came through which allowed good CAPE (3000+) which argues for extreme updraft development once it broke, also had a EML present, had a strong low pressure system in a good place for severe wx (Kentucky), steep lapses, high Equilibrium layer, ageostrophic flow which would end up aided in extremely violent rotating storms and extreme helicity, supercells found this environment and flourished, they had the environment to there self, combination of extreme CAPE and helicity is extremely dangerous, I think what didn’t help was the fact that the morning storms gave some people a mindset that it was over or it wouldn’t be bad later, as you said tho boundaries had a significant effect, there so underrated in outbreaks, they can aid in some of the most violent tornadoes
 
Interesting with that setup in 2011, the tornadoes you either had were large stovepipes with side vortices (Tuscaloosa), large wedge tornadoes with the Mesos scraping the ground (Phil Campbell/Hackleburg), or had tornadoes that were very tilted (Cullman)
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
Interesting with that setup in 2011, the tornadoes you either had were large stovepipes with side vortices (Tuscaloosa), large wedge tornadoes with the Mesos scraping the ground (Phil Campbell/Hackleburg), or had tornadoes that were very tilted (Cullman)
Click to expand...
, im guessing we got lucky then last storm system that the low wasn't closer too us. More shear and a stronger LLJ would've aided in more instability. Provided the discreet mode of the supercells.
 
Zander98al said:
, im guessing we got lucky then last storm system that the low wasn't closer too us. More shear and a stronger LLJ would've aided in more instability. Provided the discreet mode of the supercells.
Click to expand...

The veterans day 2002 tornado outbreak was the closest analog event for that day which is intresting because it produced long track but less intensity tornado tracks on a Fall day.
 
Zander98al said:
Can somebody help breakdown what made april 27th 2011, so bad in terms of meteorological factors? Because ive heard james spann say something like for that day 63 or 64 things on a checklist of 67 for severe weather were in place. Im just curious to what made is SO bad. Living here in it and being around when it happened ive always been traumatized by how the day felt and how many horrible things happened that day. It was what triggered me to want to know more about the weather and being aware of it. But thanks in advance if anyone wants to help or explain the details. Ive looked at weather soundings from that day and dont understand what factors made it so bad. Other than an outflow boundary sitting on top of birmingham and dryline approaching during peak daytime heating. Along with high helicityView attachment 17846
Click to expand...

In addition to what Fro said, the day had perfect conditions for discrete supercells. The trough was negatively tilted, but it was broad based and allowed the forcing to be more spread out and allowed the upper level shear to hit the boundary at a sharp angle as you can see by the westerly winds at 500mb.

Another factor was the insanely deep moisture. Normally in a event with this much wind shear and sunshine, the drier air mixes down and drops dewpoints. That has turned many tornado outbreaks into lots of non-tornado producing supercells.

The last big thing was the rain cooled boundary/psuedo warm front that formed across north AL/MS/GA. This backed winds and increased helicity to 800-1000. No wonder this area sparked three tornadoes that are amoung the strongest recorded but many other deadly tornadoes. The day would have been historic without it, but that area topped it off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top